The Good Mood The New Psychology of Overcoming Depression

by Simon, Julian Lincoln

• ISBN13: 9780812690989
• ISBN10: 0812690982
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-03-04
• Publisher: Open Court

Summary

Julian Simon was depressed for 13 long years, living each day under a black cloud of sadness and pain. Simon consulted psychiatrists and psychologists of several schools, and read widely and critically in the psychological literature, desperate to find some therapy that would banish his depression. Eventually he began to find help in the writings of cognitive therapists. Simon cured his own depression within weeks, and remained depression-free for the rest of his life. He made innovative contributions to the cognitive approach, resulting in his own distinctive technique, Self-Comparisons Analysis.

Table of Contents

Foreword
Foreword
Acknowledgments
The Nature of the Trouble and the Forms of Help	p. 11
What is Depression? How Does It Feel to Be Depressed?	p. 29
Negative Self-Comparisons, Combined with a Helpless Feeling, Are the Proximate Cause of Depression	p. 43
The Mechanisms That Make a Depressive	p. 59
The Hand of the Past in Depression	p. 73
The Collapse and Creation of Values	p. 81
And the Finger of the Day	p. 87
What Are Your Dimensions?	p. 93
The Rewards of Depression	p. 97
Introducing Self-Comparisons Cognitive Therapy	p. 105
Planning and Executing a Strategy Against Your Depression	p. 125
Improving Your Numerator	p. 135
Sweetening Your Denominator	p. 149
Changing Your Dimensions	p. 165
The Sound of a Numerator Clapping	p. 179
Religious Conversion Can Cure Depression	p. 201
Ways to Stop Feeling Helpless and Hopeless	p. 209
Values Therapy: A New Systematic Approach for Tough Cases	p. 217
Values Therapy and Religious Despair	p. 233
Summing Up	p. 241
Epilogue: My Misery, My Cure, My Joy	p. 245
Appendix A: Background Information for Researchers and Practitioners	p. 263
Appendix B: Relationship of Self-Comparisons Analysis to Other Theory	p. 273
Appendix C: Schematic Diagram of the Causes of Depression	p. 283
Appendix D: Tests of the Efficacy of Therapy	p. 286
Appendix E: Reply to Julian Simon's Criticisms of Rational-Emotive Therapy	p. 289
References	p. 291
Notes	p. 299
Index	p. 309
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